U.S. News

A group of pharmaceutical companies, including Johnson & Johnson (J&J), will pay up to $665 million in settlement of lawsuits connected to opioid addiction among Native American tribes, the Washington Examiner reports. The companies had already agreed to a $26 billion global settlement, and part of the money for the tribe will come from that settlement.

A Florida judge has granted a 17-year-old Tampa teenager her appeal to seek an abortion without parental consent.

The U.S. national debt passed $30 trillion for the first time in U.S. history on Tuesday, according to Treasury Department data.

Nearly 4.3 million people in the U.S. quit or changed jobs in December, slightly less than a record 4.5 million in the previous month.

Former President Trump’s political operation raised over $51 million in the second half of 2021, according to new federal filings.

The Biden administration has launched a “reproductive healthcare” task force with the goal of advancing abortion rights across the nation and is telling abortion doctors and abortion clinics, “We have your back.”

Two more states, Nebraska and Wisconsin, last week joined the call for a convention of states to amend the U.S. Constitution, imparting renewed momentum to a grassroots movement advocating a never-before-used constitutional process which, supporters say, will help transfer power back from Washington, D.C., to the states and the American people.

A Pennsylvania court struck down the commonwealth’s mail-in voting law, saying that voters must amend the state constitution in order to enact the legislation.

Millions of Americans are under winter weather alerts Saturday as a nor’easter slams the Northeast.

One of the oldest Catholic adoption and foster care agencies in Michigan settled its almost three-year legal battle against the state this week, allowing the agency to obey its religious beliefs against placing children in single-parent or LGBT homes.

An Oregon appeals court told a state agency Wednesday to reconsider its order for a Christian couple to pay $135,000 in damages for refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding on grounds that the state’s actions did “not reflect … neutrality toward religion.”

A federal judge has temporarily halted a South Dakota rule from taking effect that would have made the state one of the hardest places in the U.S. to get abortion pills.

When President Joe Biden was sworn in on Jan. 20, 2021, the federal government’s debt stood at $27,751,896,236,414.77. When his first year in office ended on Jan. 20, 2022, it stood at $29,867,021,509,573.92.

The Commerce Department reported Thursday the country’s gross domestic product increased in the last quarter of 2021 at a 6.9% annualized pace, exceeding expectations.

The state of Michigan has agreed to a proposed settlement with faith-based adoption agencies under which the agencies can refuse to place children with same-sex couples, Church Leaders reports. The settlement was reached after the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Catholic child placement agency on a similar issue.

A 31-year-old man in need of a heart transplant in Boston has been taken off his transplant waiting list because he refused to take the COVID-19 vaccination on ideological and medical grounds, the NY Post reports.

With both volatile markets and significant inflation in the mix, the Federal Reserve on Wednesday indicated that it may soon raise interest rates for the first time in more than three years.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, for 27 years a staunch liberal voice on the country’s highest court, has decided to retire, according to news accounts in Washington.

The U.S. trade deficit topped $1 trillion for the first time last year, according to Market Watch.

The Supreme Court this week announced that it would hear two cases challenging the practice by some U.S. universities of using the race of an applicant as one of the factors that affect admissions.